Northwest People/Places. Yesterday.

What Would Johnny Appleseed Say?

July 07, 1996|By Larry Mayer. Special to the Tribune.

Composer Egbert Van Alstyne wasn't Marengo's only contribution to the 21st annual Soldier Field Music Festival in 1950. An actual apple tree from Van Alstyne's boyhood home town was uprooted and transported to the stage to honor the pianist who had written the music for "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree."

The director of the music festival wanted a real apple tree from Marengo because it was just such a tree that Van Alstyne and colleague Harry Williams--low on funds and in desperate need of a hit song--were thought to be dreaming about when they wrote the song while in New York's Central Park.

The tree that would end up in Soldier Field was found on the McKeown farm between Marengo and Garden Prairie. Because the machinery necessary to uproot it was not available, Marengo civic leaders drafted every able-bodied man to dig up the tree. Machinery eventually arrived, and the tree was lifted out of the ground and set on a truck for its journey to Chicago.

At Soldier Field, Van Alstyne was greeted with a rousing ovation from 100,000 fans when he and his wife walked on stage and sat under the tree.

Van Alstyne composed hundreds of songs with Williams and Gus Kahn beginning in 1903. They include "Drifting and Dreaming," "Pretty Baby," "Memories" and "Navajo."

McHenry County's most famous songwriter died one year after the Soldier Field event at the age of 69.